It doesn’t matter that he’s now a millionaire, with more
songs currently in the UK Top 20 charts than most successful artists score in a
lifetime. He may be richer and more famous than you’ll ever be, but he still
dresses the same way as you – so much so that during an album launch party in
an Oxford Street HMV store, he looked almost indistinguishable from the staff. He
may be able to afford a yacht and be a household name in every country, but he
still wants us all to know that he loves and hurts and dances and drinks wine
and eats Doritos just like you do.
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| Ed Sheeran's chart rankings. He's just a normal guy. |
These are the lyrics that fuel Divide. The red-haired raconteur reflects on heartbreak and falling
in love through everyday scenarios. Its stuff every human being with a pulse
can relate to. Which is where the problem lies.
Ed doesn’t want to leave people divided on Divide. His topics are safe and
calculated so that no-one feels alienated. His ex’s new boyfriend on ‘New Man’ is
a stereotypical douche that wears sunglasses indoors and gets his eyebrows plucked
and his arsehole bleached (although I’m not sure how Ed would possibly know
this) – a fictional bad guy of the 21st Century that even the most
loutish disciples of bro culture can hate. His love affairs are with nameless,
faceless girls, enabling him to create a blank mould for each one of his frothing-at-the-mouth
female fanbase to project themselves into. Only on ‘Galway Girl’ - an Irish-flavoured
folk-ditty and one of the better songs on the album - does he create a unique
character for the woman he’s singing about.
Of course, Ed too chooses to remain a faceless human being in
his music, never offering any personal anecdotes or twists that may reveal too much about his own private life. Other than the
fact that he never went to uni (which he’s kept us updated on throughout his
whole musical career) and the fact that he REALLY loves Van Morrison (he name-checks
him twice on the album), we don’t get to know much about Ed’s own penchants and
experiences, but rather generic template tales of falling in love or missing a
girl he was once in love with. ‘Eraser’ gives us a hint that the singer may
have some personal issues he wants to vent on tape, but knowing that such
material won’t sell, he’s holding these juicy and interesting lyrics back: ‘Ain’t nobody wanna see you down in the
dumps/ because you’re living your dream, man, this shit should be fun.’
For the pop-consuming generation of today that have probably
never listened to another singer-songwriter, some of his template subject
matter may seem revelatory compared to the ass-anthems and club bangers of
other pop stars. But for those of us that are well-versed in singer-songwriter material,
Ed is just churning out love song clichés over polished dime-a-dozen pop-folk
instrumentals.
There are certainly ways in which Ed is a breath of fresh
air for pop. He isn’t some reality TV product crafted by Simon Cowell and co. He’s
grafted his way to the top by his own means, having come from playing small dingy
pub venues full of drunken darts players to performing to sold-out arenas full
of screaming girls and boys (and if we’re going to get politically correct
about it, maybe some screaming non-binary folk too). His music may be generic,
but he personally chose it to be that way. His image, his lyrics, his music, is
all still in his own vision, which is a valuable rarity in today’s pop scene.
All in all, to quote a Batman movie, Ed Sheeran is the hero
the pop industry deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
★★☆☆☆
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